Papua New Guinea - shore excursions on your own

[Monkeygirl2]

Hi there, we have 3 ports of call in Papua New Guinea in March 23 - Alotau, Kiriwina Islands and Rabaul (New Britain)

 

Has anyone visited them recently and what was their experience of the ports of call and whether there are any other options than the ships shore excursions 

I have looked at the official visit Papua New Guinea website and there isnt much detail on what you can do on a one day visit if you aren’t getting married or staying in a hut

 

We sail at 6 or 7pm each day so dont want to be “lost” at the other side of the island so happy to stay near port 

 

thanks

Pam

[Fletcher]

PNG is an interesting place to visit on a cruise, to say the least.  Rabaul is incredible, a vast bay of some significance during WWII and now home to a rather active volcano.  Much of the town is covered in thick volcanic dust.  You can wander around the town, even on to the lava fields, and there is a large church to inspect.  The harbour scene just sums up Joseph Conrad.  Be aware that Rabaul can seem rather threatening and this applies to all towns in PNG.   Some cruise companies might run an excursion down to Kokopo and the WWII museum and some caves built by the Japanese.  Alotau is a typical PNG town - very scruffy, dirty, vaguely threatening but, if you are experienced in this sort of tourism, it can be exciting and superb for photos.  There is a great market here.  I've been three times - always on 100 pax expedition ships - and on one occasion passengers were not allowed to explore on their own because of a perceived security threat. 

 

Not sure about the island group you are visiting but we have been to several and some offer outstanding village visits as well as beaches and snorkelling.  

 

You won't be 'lost' on the other side of the island as these places are vast land masses.

 

Pictures are of Rabaul and Alotau harbour.

Edited September 17, 2022 by Fletcher

[Monkeygirl2]

Thanks for taking the time to reply and the valuable information you provided. Very much looking forward to our visit

[debgow]

On 9/7/2022 at 12:45 AM, Monkeygirl2 said:

Hi there, we have 3 ports of call in Papua New Guinea in March 23 - Alotau, Kiriwina Islands and Rabaul (New Britain)

 

Has anyone visited them recently and what was their experience of the ports of call and whether there are any other options than the ships shore excursions 

I have looked at the official visit Papua New Guinea website and there isnt much detail on what you can do on a one day visit if you aren’t getting married or staying in a hut

 

We sail at 6 or 7pm each day so dont want to be “lost” at the other side of the island so happy to stay near port 

 

thanks

Pam

Pam, we are doing a cruise next month visiting Rabaul amongst other places. Did you end up doing anything other than a ships tour? Any advice? 

[Sparky74]

On 5/4/2023 at 8:03 AM, debgow said:

Pam, we are doing a cruise next month visiting Rabaul amongst other places. Did you end up doing anything other than a ships tour? Any advice? 

We are doing a PNG cruise in a couple of weeks and have no idea what we’re doing on port days! 😱

Any advice?

[SinbadThePorter]

On 7/20/2024 at 7:34 AM, Sparky74 said:

Any advice?

 

Kiriwina is a tropical island with a village. Quite safe to just walk around or snorkel off the beach, although at low tide it gets a bit difficult. There is a big market setup by the locals with carvings and weavings. The locals hate haggling as its not customary. Always bring Kina for purchases as it's very difficult for the locals to change any other currency, including Oz dollars. Lots of 5 Kina notes are very useful. There is usually a native dance and singsong set up by the village for which you are expected to give a donation if you attend. There is often also a BBQ of big fish on the beach, but I don't know the arrangements for that. The kids offer canoe rides, which were 5 Kina for a short trip or a lift out to deeper water for snorkeling.

 

Alotau is a large town and as with all PNG towns you should always be careful. Don't get off the beaten track, don't travel alone, don't flash cash. It is not a pretty town, but the surrounding scenery is spectacular.

 

Rabaul is shell of what it once was. The volcano just about killed the town when it exploded in the 90s. It was once the local capital, but that has been moved twenty or so kilometres away to Kokopo. Lots of WWII sites to visit as it was the headquarters of the Imperial Japanese Army. There will be many excursions on offer at the port.

 

Conflict Islands are nearly the perfect tropical getaway. If you snorkel, get the ship excursion out to the pontoon, where the good coral is.

[Dididi]

I shared our experiences in the Conflict Islands in another tread, so here are our experiences at the other PNG ports. We were on the Pacific Encounter last month.

 

For Alotau we took the cooking class tour with the ship because it had received good reviews. After a short shuttle bus ride, we arrived at a pretty, very clean small resort hotel in town. We were greeted with coconuts to drink. The cooking instructions were not too clear but everyone put on aprons and began to peel and slice vegetables and fruit. The vegetables (plantains, yams, tubers, other edible plants) were stacked inside very large pots lined in banana leaves. Some pieces of cooked meat were added, as well as ginger and coconut milk. A group of passengers prepared the fruit salad. We had a 1.5 hour break (or so) while the meal was cooked. We went to the pool; I don't know what other passengers did. The group ate everything we prepared. The resort's chef brought additional dishes, including oysters. Altogether the tour was less than four hours. From what we saw, returning to the town didn't seem very appealing. Yet we saw lots of passengers on the side of the road walking to the market, in the heat. 

 

In Kiriwina we took our suitcase full of donations (school supplies for the children and sewing supplies for the women) to a nearby village. One of the teachers -- she showed us her credentials -- gave us a tour of the village. It was very interesting. On our way back we saw groups of children signing and then all of the items for sale by the villagers of Kiriwina and nearby islands.  The wood carvings with shell inlays were beautiful, much more so than we expected. Because we didn't want to spend time in customs in Brisbane (and miss our flight to Sydney), we didn't buy any. We spent time at the beach but with the tide out, we couldn't easily explore the reef so just chilled out in the shallows by the shore. We took a boat ride with the kids. I paid $4 because I didn't have Kina. Not a safe vessel but we didn't go far.

 

For Rabaul we took a day-long tour with Rabaul Scenic Tours. It was unbelievably hot and humid that morning.The A/C on our shuttle bus blew out hot air all morning long; we had cool air in the afternoon. We saw the ravages of the volcano eruption, i.e., everything buried under meters of ash, before going to a village for a dancing show and to the base of the volcano. We were warned not to get too close to the hot springs which drained into a very large lake. Further away I saw a group of children swimming in the lake. I walked that way thinking I could dip my feet in the water. No, it was super hot! On our way to Kokopo (the current capital) we saw one of the Japanese tunnels up close, then had lunch at a very nice local hotel (meal cost not included but it was inexpensive and everyone raved about how good it was) and visited the WW2 museum. The Japanese tanks were tiny! Got some souvenirs. On our way back we stopped at a mountain overlook next to the vulcanologists' center. Great views of the ship, the port area, the bay (beautiful) and the volcanoes. Our guide Edna was wonderful. She was very well prepared with lots of historical background about the area, but also shared with us information about her family and village, and even explained to us all about the betel nuts. Edna made each of us on the bus feel welcome. Looking back, all of our interactions with PNG folks were very positive. We truly enjoyed our visit to PNG.

Edited September 14 by Dididi
Fixed misspelled word.

[Gwendy]

Very disappointed with Kiriwana.  Have been there before and it was lovely.  Now so many stalls all selling same stuff.  Last month they had two large turtles on their backs on the sand, if you paid them 50 Kina they would take them to deeper water and release them.  
‘The line up to go back to the ship, Pacific Encounter was 2 hours, tenders were leaving with empty seats  while the line just got longer.  At one stage two of the clans on the island got into a fight with machetes quite close to the line waiting to get on the tenders.  
Rabaul, there was a long walk to the markets with no option of transport back to ship, eg taxi etc.  If you didn’t do a shore tour, no other option.

Again very commercialised from when I was last there.